Product Quality & Safety

Product Quality & Safety

The well-being of our consumers is a top priority, which is why it is our policy to deliver products that meet applicable regulatory requirements. We also strive to meet or exceed consumer expectations. Our aspiration is to use the safest ingredients, as defined by a science-based approach to product safety and provide open and transparent details about those ingredients.

Kimberly-Clark remains engaged to address our customers’ expectations while being cognizant of regulatory actions related to the use of substances of concern to the environment and human health. Positioning ourselves to proactively anticipate the evolving regulatory landscape and working to hold our processes and product testing to a high standard help to advance our competitive position. We believe these efforts will help us build trust with consumers, capture market share, and avoid costs from associated regulatory burdens.

Product Safety & Quality Policies and Management Systems

Kimberly-Clark expects our global businesses, functions, and facilities to align with our Quality Policy, which defines the principles that guide how we design, manufacture, and deliver, high-quality products with a focus on consumer safety across every brand. Our corporate Quality Management System sets our internal standards and strives to align with industry best practices, the varying regulatory expectations of the nations and regions in which we operate, and the internationally recognized ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 quality standards. The Quality Management System is subject to a regular cycle of internal and external audit to support the effectiveness of our controls.

Our approach is supported by internal and independent safety evaluations designed to support the quality and safety of our products. To enable product safety analysis and support regulatory compliance, Kimberly-Clark proactively gathers chemical composition information for raw materials used in manufacturing (including confidential disclosures from suppliers) and checks them against legally restricted substances relevant to the product form and country of sale. Senior management is responsible for overseeing compliance across these stringent requirements, which drives ongoing improvement and helps promote Kimberly-Clark products that are safe and effective for consumers. Efforts at our individual facilities are also supported by on-site quality assurance systems. Our employees responsible for these processes are trained on an annual or semi-annual basis as defined in our Quality Management System training process, which includes the topics noted above.

Kimberly-Clark uses a “Right First Time” process that is intended to capture data on a product’s whole supply chain, from materials procurement and manufacturing to warehousing, distribution, and point-of-sale quality/appearance that is based on well-defined goals to drive ongoing progress in our program. We also provide a single end-of-pipe metric intended to create accountability so that every aspect of getting that product to the end-user can be done right, the first time and every time. The data related to RFT is then analyzed annually to foster learning and influence our process improvement opportunities for the following year. We work across the organization to promote effective processes and take actions through procedure or process updates to address our opportunities for improvement.

We have expectations in three key areas:

1. Management Accountability: Our business unit presidents are responsible for promoting the safety of our products and services, from initial introduction to ongoing reviews for regulatory compliance and alignment with public safety expectations.

2. Safety Assessments: Our products undergo safety assessments by qualified experts, in accordance with international standards of human health risk.

3. Chemical Management: Safety and environmental data is carefully collected and used to develop business strategies for reducing, restricting, or eliminating chemicals of concern and advancing safer alternatives.

Ingredients Transparency, Marketing, & Labeling

When consumers choose our instantly recognizable brands, they are trusting our commitment to safety, which starts by using safe materials as components in the production of our products and sending our products through our robust Product Safety Analysis. We are committed to transparency, sharing our practices and providing ingredient information that is clear, reliable, and accessible.

We have created greater transparency for our personal care and formulated professional products in the North American market, through our Kimberly-Clark Ingredients website. We disclose information on priority regional products such as baby care products, personal care wet wipes and adult incontinence products from around the world. Our long-term plan calls for disclosing all our ingredient information worldwide, giving consumers the additional data they desire to help them make smart, informed choices through our Kimberly-Clark Ingredients website and our brand websites.

Managing Emerging Materials & Chemicals of Concern

Kimberly-Clark’s product safety strategy is to start with safe materials focusing on making safe products. In addition, Kimberly-Clark proactively gathers chemical composition information for raw materials used in manufacturing and checks the information against legally restricted substances relevant to the product form and country of sale to support its compliance with applicable laws.

As science is in constant evolution, Kimberly-Clark regularly evaluates the latest research, technology, and regulation to inform our process. Some of the ingredients that we do not use in any of our formulated products (personal care and professional care), absorbent hygiene, and tissue/tower/wiper products include Alkylphenols and Alkyl phenol ethoxylates, Heavy metals (Arsenic, Lead, Chromium VI, Mercury, Cadmium, Nickel), Microbeads, Organotins (TBT, DBT, MBT, DOT) Triclosan, and Triclocarbon. We maintain a Restricted Substances List (RSL) to provide a consistent, global approach to help safeguard our consumers and the environment from exposure to ingredients of potential concern and manage the use of materials and ingredients that may be of concern to our consumers and customers.

Our experts evaluate the safety of our products and ingredients before they go to market, using well-established risk assessment methods to understand both hazards and potential exposures to support their compliance with current regulatory requirements and public safety expectations. Our screening criteria include confirming the safety of the composition and compliance of the ingredients with both external regulations and Kimberly-Clark’s own corporate standards.

We proactively monitor and assess new human health and environmental safety information regarding ingredients published by scientific research and regulatory agencies globally as well as by retailers and nongovernmental organizations to help keep our RSL current.

We have integrated our identification, management, and reduction of chemicals of interest and safer alternatives in our business strategy through our Product Stewardship Council (PSC), which was formed in 2014. The PSC is a cross-functional team that provides a platform and process for identification, review, and communication of chemicals of interest and to enable the proactive development of business strategies to remove and/or reduce specific chemicals, and advance safer alternatives, in some instances above and beyond regulatory requirements.